Crossed lives - The Viennese Violinist
by Anyathethief
Summary: Roman is a Russian soldier in the now freed city of Vienna. He's found a notebook with some strangely familiar drawings and he's decided to investigate. Meanwhile, back in the XVII century, Athos is determined to find the woman who's ruined his life, consuming his soul and body from the inside. He leaves for a desperate journey towards London.
1. Chapter 1

With this last – I think – series of Crossed Lives I want to fill the holes. I'd recommend to read the two old stories to have more continuity. Even if you don't like the couples (I don't like them neither hahaha), I promise it's something totally different, which can't be summed up in the following summaries!

As always, I have to thank my friend Kat for the amazing cover! Love you!

Enjoy!

 **A short summary of Crossed lives**  
Viktoria Haas is an Austrian girl living in Vienna with her father, her sister Eva and her grandmother during the Second World War. She finds out that her father is hiding in a room inside his factory a Jew, Ben Keller. While the two of them seem to fall in love and share more than they think, the coincidences and the dreams that Viktoria has since she was a child, start to become suspect.  
Viktoria receives from her grandmother an ancient crucifix and finds out that the old lady, like her, has memories of a past life. Thanks to them she was able, when she was young, to find the crucifix buried at the foot of a tree in Paris. There, she met a guy, Jerome, whom would become Viktoria's grandfather.  
Viktoria talks to Ben, whom for years has been drawing the same face, her face, even before they met. They find out they are the reincarnation of Aramis and Queen Anne.  
Meanwhile, the truth about the Musketeer and the Queen's faith is revealed to Viktoria through her dreams: they were both executed, charged with treason. The crucifix was given from Aramis to D'Artagnan, which in turn gave it to Constance, whom in the end buried it at the foot of the trees where Viktoria's grandmother found it.  
Ben and Viktoria find their tragic deaths when they are surprised by Viktoria's dad's partner.  
In the bonus chapter, we are in 2015 and we shortly see Iris, a Spanish girl that in some way owns the crucifix. She meets Manuel almost by chance. As soon as they see each other, the two of them understand that they met before in other lives. They are, indeed, the Queen and Aramis again.

 **A short summary of Crossed Lives – The Oath  
** Bea and Tommaso are two Scouts, they have grown up together and they are inseparable since they've known each other. When they were children, almost as a joke, they have swapped their Scouts' neckerchiefs and in that moment both of them saw their past lives. Bea was, indeed, Constance, while Tommaso was D'Artagnan.  
Bea has never wanted to talk about it, because she saw terrible things. When she was Constance, she had to bear the pain of being D'Artagnan's widow, with a newborn child. This shocked her so much that she did an extreme thing, which forced the King and the new Queen to banish her from Paris.  
When Bea and Tommaso find themselves in a dangerous situation, they are rescued from Iris and Manuel, which they immediately recognise.

 _Chapter 1_

Roman Kozlov had been staring at that building for a few minutes. It seemed incredible that it was still standing, due to the cruel faith the whole Vienna had incurred in

Still he could hear the bombs in the distance, and columns of smoke rose from tore-down or burnt buildings. In the streets, the soviet's tanks marched triumphant along with shouts for joy, which came in part from vodka, in part from the excitement of having the whole city in their hands. A few shots made him think that there were still some hiding Nazis to be executed; but it was a woman's shout coming from who knows where to waken Roman from his catharsis. This was followed by a burst of laughter: they were doing it again.

His hands shook, but he knew he was powerless; if he tried to stop them, it would have ended badly for him, again. The pain in his ribs still reminded his last attempt to save a little girl from his mates' clutches. She was younger than Nina, his little sister, his Ninochka, and the scared look that she gave him just before she'd been threw on the table from four big and tall men, had remarkably reminded him of his sister. So much that he couldn't just stay and watch.

A stinging pain in his abdomen, forced him to loosen the strap of the Mosin-Nagant that he had on his shoulder. They had beaten him to a nub, but at least the little girl had managed to run away.

Cowards.

They all acted as conquerors, but that wasn't the reason why he'd enlisted. They didn't free thousands people from their torturers just to take their place. After all those battles, he just wanted to go back home to his mother and sister, and leave to their lives those poor people who'd already suffered too much from war.

So, standing still was Roman Kozlov in front of that building: a dusty notebook in his hands, and his sky-blue eyes in contrast with his skin darkened from the dirt. An out-of-place detail in a catastrophic painting, a glimmer of light on a city of darkness, a splash of colour added by a child in a white-and-black drawing.

Another scream broke by sobbing, tore his heart apart. He suddenly turned, but the only thing he saw were five soldiers with his same uniform laughing and staggering along the street, helping each other to walk.

To not hear the screaming any more, he put on a brave face and entered the building.

The stair was dark because there was no electricity, and he had to be careful to not stumble into the steps. He counted one, two, three floors before he crossed the scared look of an old lady, who rushed into her apartment; he heard the key turning several times in the door.

He climbed up another floor and he found himself right in front of the door he was looking for. With no further hesitation, he swallowed and knocked. He suddenly remembered he had his gun in sight, so he rapidly took it off and leaned it against the wall.

"Who are you? We have weapons." he heard a girl's voice from the other side of the door. They must had seen him through the peep-hole, even if he hadn't hear her steps.

"I mean you ino harm. I'm looking for Mister Haas, they told me he lived… he lives here." his German was halting but understandable, despite his strong Russian accent.

"Go away." the girl replied after a few seconds.

"Please. I just want to talk. I found something… I have reasons to think it belongs to you." he explained. Then he raised the notebook next to his head, showing it in front of the peep-hole. "I found it in Mister Haas' factory's rubble." he tried to say, persuasively.

A long silence was the reply he got. Resigned, he left the notebook on the floor and took his Mosin-Nagat. "Put it down." ordered the determined voice from the inside. "Leave it there and I'll let you in."

Roman made a slightly satisfied smile, but immediately wiped it off: he didn't want to appear too confident. He left the gun leaning against the wall and stepped back from the door with his hands up. He heard the key turning and finally the door opened.

A blonde girl, severe and dried-up looking was staring at him sceptical, almost sulky. Before he could see the gun she was holding, he saw her judging, fair eyes. He felt naked and powerless in front of that look even because, without taking her eyes off him, she confiscated his gun. She closed the door again; he heard some tinker noises and he didn't know if she would have opened it again. But then, there she was again; she was using her gun confidently and her words cut the air between them, as harsh as they sounded.

"Don't try anything stupid. I know how to use it. I've done it before."

"That's not my intention." he babbled, a little shaken.

"Take it." she pointed at the notebook on the floor and Roman slowly bent to pick it up.

He entered the apartment behind the girl whom had never taken her eyes off him the whole time. Even if he wanted to do something, he wouldn't have even the time to pull out the blade.

"My name is Roman Kozlov." he tried to break the tension, in vain.

"Eva." the girl replied, coldly, then she stretched her hand out to get the leather-covered notebook. He hesitated. He'd almost got attached to that item, he wasn't sure about giving it to that rude girl, which wasn't exactly the person he'd expected to meet.

"Mister Haas..." he tried to say.

"Give me that notebook and get out of here." she cut it short. Roman saw her right eye sparkle imperceptibly.

In the moment he was about to give the notebook to the girl, a voice draw the attention of the two.

"Eva, who's there?"

Panic spread in her eyes, when an old, hunchbacked, grey-headed lady came out of the adjacent room. She was smiling peacefully, unaware of what was happening.

"N-No one, grandma! Go back in there!" she ordered, alternating her look from the old lady to the soldier. But after a second of astonishment, Roman had lost interest for the gun pointing towards him. He couldn't help but noticing the way the old lady was staring at him: the same look you give to a friend you see after a long, long time.

Eva's grandmother put her hand on her chest and with the other hand she lowered her granddaughter's arm, the one holding the gun.

"Grandma, what…?!" the girl exclaimed, stupefied.

Roman had remained impressed. He'd never seen that person before, but something was telling him that he was in the right place. A feeling of pity and affection moved his heart towards the old lady, but not in the same way he used to be moved looking at the poor women afflicted by the war. It was different, it was something way more familiar.

In an automatic gesture he gave the notebook to Eva, whom, even though she'd lowered her gun, kept glancing at him sceptically. When the girl looked into it, the emotion overwhelmed her. "Vicky..." he thought she whispered, while her tears were wetting the yellow pages.

"I… I'm sorry, I found it and… Those drawings had reminded me… I don't know..." he tried to explain, while the grandmother was still smiling at him. "That face looked familiar to me, and I thought you may knew..." he added, insecure.

Eva closed the notebook sharply, shutting him up, she rapidly dried her tears with the back of her hand, then she stretched the same hand to take Romans' gun, which she'd hidden on the top of the cabinet in the hall.

"Mister… Mister Haas…?" he tried to ask one last time, but Eva was quicker and didn't let him finish the question.

"Go away." she ordered, giving him back his gun. "Please." she added, mellowing out a little.

The Russian tried to find complicity in the old lady by looking at her and he saw her struggling to undo something on her nape.

"Tell your friends to stay away." Eva sentenced, when he took back his Mosin-Nagat with insecurity and tried to buy some time by putting it on his shoulder: what was that woman doing? Roman didn't take off his eyes from Eva's grandmother, while he was walking towards the door. It was about to being shut by the girl, when a faint voice, tired from the effort, hold her back. "Wait!"

Roman stuck, curious, and Eva did the same.

"Grandma, what are you doing?" she asked, looking at the woman walking to the door, holding something in her hand. A long, silvered necklace hanged from her fingers and when she opened them, her hand showed a jewel: a crucifix as flashy as precious, with five little stones.

"Grandma, no!" Eva intervened, outraged.

"Take it." the lady smiled. "I've owned it for too long, and it doesn't belong to me."

Roman was astonished. His eyes had popped out and he didn't know what to do, but the woman was insisting, by pushing her hand against his chest. He took the necklace which was about to fall on the floor.

"But… I..." he shook his head looking at Eva. "I don't want..." he was about to say. But the girl was staring at her grandmother intensely, as if she wanted to study her.

"Take it." she concluded, curling her lips and dilating her nostrils, accepting the old lady's decision along with some tears. "Goodbye."

And she closed the door, literally pushing him out and leaving him in the hallway, shocked, with a crucifix in his hand.

He stared at it in the darkness, examining attentively while going down the stairs. He tripped in his own feet a couple of times, but nothing could have made his heart beat like the feeling he had had in meeting that woman again. He didn't even know why his mind was strongly imposing the word "again", since it'd been the first time he'd met her. When he went out on the street he carefully put the jewel in his pocket, hiding it completely.

He looked around but the situation hadn't changed much than before. He thought he would have felt relieved after he'd given back the notebook, but he had a new burden to carry instead, and it was weighing his pocket. That item wasn't his. It wasn't the old lady's neither. But this time he didn't have any clue to be able to give it back to his owner. And then, he wasn't a courier, after all.

He started to walk. He hadn't even moved a couple of steps, that a whistle made him wince, and he recognised the following sound. The stinging pain reached him only after a few seconds: someone had shot him. The bullet had just grazed his arm and the bullet was stuck in the wall behind his back.

He frantically searched with his eyes in the direction from where the shot had come and he saw a man running down an alley. He wore a hat and a long coat; the sun was going down, so he wasn't able to see his face, but he started running after him.


	2. Chapter 2

_Chapter 2_

"How long has it been? How long since the last time you kissed me and, without speaking, you promised me a life together?"

Athos suddenly woke up with a gasp and started to breathe heavily. He ran his hands through his soaked hair and stared into space for some minutes.

It wasn't the first time he'd dreamt of her. It would happen especially when he was drunk, and maybe that was also the reason she appeared even more beautiful than he remembered. He ironically laughed, with no control: she was the one who appeared to him like an angel. Her, the personification of devil.

He laid back with his head on the pillow and laughed to his lungs' consumption.

Then he cried.

In the loneliness of his room, he exhausted his tears wallowing in his shame.

That woman had been eaten his brain until she'd reached that hidden, remote spot that, when it was tickled, made him regret to be still alive. He regretted never running after her, accepting the role of Captain – Captain! Him, who couldn't even control himself while pouring the wine – to have never told her about the feelings he still had.

He was furious. Five years had passed and she was still tormenting him. Nobody had been able to make him forget, not even for a moment. If he made love to another woman, he still felt the forget-me-nots' perfume, he kept seeing her dark hair, picturing her lips kissing his body, hearing her voice. He ended up more wrecked than before and entered a never ending, vicious circle made of alcohol and whores.

The fact he'd lost D'Artagnan too, who'd died in his arms, didn't help to improve the situation. Porthos had never been the same since then. He'd shut down and he talked less, even less than Athos himself. Aramis was almost a distant memory, but he still hadn't recovered from his lost. However, for all the pain he could feel remembering his departed friends, her picture kept coming to visit his dreams, even when his eyes where opened.

He hated her.

He'd ruined his life forever.

That morning, Athos was nowhere to be found in the Garrison.

From that morning, Athos was nowhere to be found in Paris for a long time.

He left on his horse, alone, with some food supply for a journey meant to last days and a woman's white glove in his pocket. He didn't say anything to no one. It was something that concerned only the two of them. Any attempt to help or interfere with him would have only been a further bother that would have, eventually, made him give up his purpose.

He rode north for an endless time, rarely stopping, constantly thinking of her, even if he had no idea of how to find her. But he would, or he would have died in the attempt.

When he arrived to Calais, he saw her eyes staring at him, mischievous, in the moonlight's reflection on the sea waves, and he desired to sink in them.

* * *

Roman was running his heart out, as much as the pain in his arm allowed him. It had come stinging and it had left him breathless: he was feeling the blood running beneath his uniform and a rampant tingling.

"Hey!" he managed to scream. "You, stop!" he could see him always just for short seconds, before he would turn once right, once left.

He didn't want to let him go: why did he shoot him? He was getting used to the Austrians' scared looks when they would notice his soviet uniform, but he'd never hurt anyone. Maybe it was just someone trying to avenge an injustice from another soldier?

He lost sight of him after a few minutes. He couldn't run anymore and his arm was aching, even if the bullet hadn't stuck in his flesh. Despite all, he kept walking with his gun ready. He noticed that the alley went on an obligatory path, and the more he carried on, the more he hoped it would end in a dead end. His mind was thinking fast, while he gave some attention to his wound, and some to his steps. If that alley was a dead end, unless he'd entered one of those houses, then at the end he would found…

Not the one he was expecting. There was a girl there, in the ruins of a wrecked house, searching on the ground in what looked like a bunch of garbage and rubble.

Roman appeared with his gun pointed to her, but when he realised it was just a girl, he lowered it dangling from his wounded arm. He stopped to not scare her.

She suddenly turned and made a scared squeak, then she tried to escape climbing the mountain of wreckage.

"Wait, stop! I mean no harm!" it was the second time that day he had to reassure a woman about his intentions. She slipped down the ruins, sliding until she reached the ground. "It's dangerous, stop…!" Roman went closer, slowly, while she kept struggling, pushing her back against the wreckage and trying to stand on her shaking legs.

He raised his hands again, surrendering. "Fear not." he tried to calm her with his deep voice, flashing a not-at-all intimidating smile.

"Please, don't..." the girl shrugged, shrinking and shaking, she pressed her arms against her breast, as they were a shield and closed her eyes, crying in terror.

"What happened to you?" he asked, getting closer. She peeked for a moment, as she wanted to see how he looked like, but then she closed her eyes again.

Finally Roman could properly see her face and he noticed how beautiful she was, even if she was trying to hide it: she wore a worn-out dress and had stringy, messy hair.

"I was only looking for some food… Please, let me go home, my sister is wounded." she said in one breath. "You can do whatever you want with me, but be fast, please." and she started crying.

Roman stared at her, trying to find the right words to console her, but he'd remained fascinated by her moves. She seemed to be more aware than she wanted to make him believe, and this made him feel stupid, because he lapped up every word and every tear, enough to be almost moved by that. Then he came round.

"I'm looking for a man, all right?" he tried to explain. "Have you seen a man running this way? He had a hat..."

The girl who was now looking in his eyes, shook her head rapidly. Roman thought the man must had entered one of those houses, or he had climbed over the ruins and she was shamelessly lying. He gave up the search of the man who'd shot him.

He checked the wound: it wasn't so bad, but it was still bleeding.

"I'll bring you a hot meal and medication for your sister, if you help me bind up my wound." he offered. She widen her eyes, hesitating, then she nodded shyly.

"Great. Have you got something like a bandage?" he'd just finished his question that she was already ripping off part of her dress to tie it around his arm.

Roman felt mocked, after he'd assisted to that sudden change. That girl wasn't a silly, innocent Austrian terrified by soldiers: she was hiding something.

"It wasn't necessary..." he tried to say, playing along. "What's your name?"

"Vanessa. Vanessa Berger." she replied in a low voice. Her gestures contrasted one with another, and he couldn't find a logic in her behaviour. Was she or wasn't she scared by him? He felt like she was leading the situation; the unarmed, crying woman.

"I'm Roman Kozlov." he introduced himself, still astonished from that mix of conflicting feelings coming from that girl. What was true and what was a lie? Did she even tell him her real name or did she just make it up? If she had lied, she was damn good. But maybe it was just an impression, perhaps she had acted that fast only because she was in a hurry to go back home, as she said.

"If you are hungry, why don't you come and get the food we give out every evening?" he asked, trying to catch her off-guard, while she was tying the improvised bandage around his arm with a strength he'd never expected from her frail build.

She didn't answer and clouded.

"We are not all the same, you know?" he said, then.

Again, she remained silent.

"I'll walk you home, and this evening I'll bring you something to eat."

Vanessa stepped back, in silence.

"I'll come alone, I swear." he said from the heart. Was he really almost begging her in order to see her again? His crystal eyes said nothing but sincereness, while Vanessa's emeralds hesitated thoughtful, staring at him.

"I have no use for a soldier's word. Goodbye." she stepped over him and disappeared from his sight.

Once again, Roman was dazed: what did just happen? He couldn't say why when she'd walked away, she'd left inside him an unbridgeable, heartbreaking emptiness. He had to see her again.

But when he was about to go after her, something else draw his attention in the ruins of the house.


	3. Chapter 3

_Chapter 3_

Athos had reached London after a few days journey. He felt he was on the right way, but he hadn't any idea neither of how big England was, nor to where to start looking.

He'd been naive and stubborn expecting to get in that place he didn't know, where nobody could understand what he was saying, and look for her simply asking to everyone if they knew the bitchiest woman in the world; however, a part of him was still convinced that he could have found her only with that information.

He found himself in a tavern, drinking, again. Nothing had changed. Paris or London, he always ended up defeated and wrecked by a woman he hadn't seen for five, long years and who might as well being dead.

He chugged a couple of wine bottles. It wasn't as good as the one in Paris, but the George Inn Pub was cosy, nobody got into fights and nobody looked at him the wrong way because he wasn't a local.

In one of his last moment of vague lucidity, he heard someone speaking French at the counter. They were two men: they didn't look like travellers, so he assumed they were residents, or at least they had been living there longer than him.

He wiped his mouth with his sleeve and, without leaving the bottle, he staggered towards them. He must have been noisier than he thought because he wasn't even too close to them, that the two already turned to him. "Can we help you?" asked in English the shorter one, a burly man in his fifties.

Athos took out the glove from his pocket. "How many inhabitants does London have?" he spluttered, stunned by the wine and the long journey.

"Good heavens, more than two hundred thousands!" the same man replied in French, when he understood that his interlocutor wasn't a local.

"I'll speak to every last one of them. And I'll find her." he said, waving the glove in front of their faces, as he thought it was important to them to have that information, maybe because they were the only ones in the pub to understand what he was saying.

"Where did you get that glove?" the barkeeper asked suddenly in English to the two men, knowing that Athos couldn't speak his language.

The two, astonished, moved their eyes from the stout man behind the counter to the Musketeer, who had guessed the question despite the language barrier.

"Why are you asking?" he leaned on the counter, towards the man. "Do you know something?!" he exclaimed almost hysterical.

"Calm down." said the taller of the two French men. "Let's try to understand."

"A woman who used to come here all the time would wear the identical pair of that glove." the barkeeper explained to the two men. "I thought he was looking for her."

One of the two translated for Athos, who meanwhile was recovering his lucidity.

"Ask him what was her name. Ask him where she is now. I have to know everything."

The two men spoke in English with the barkeeper for a few moments, but they seemed endless to Athos. He promised himself to learn the language, because he was suffering an uncontrolled impatience. Everyone shut up and he looked at them with crazy eyes. "So?!"

"He said he doesn't know her name. She used to come here with a man, but now it's been a few weeks he doesn't see her anymore." the tall man said uncertain.

"And who's this man?" Athos pressed. He was getting nervous, there was something the two men weren't telling him.

"Mr. Matthews." the tall man replied again, after a short silence.

"Do you know him?" the Captain had to insist.

"He's… A nasty guy." the shorter confessed.

Athos lost his temper. "I swear to God that if you don't talk, I'll beat you so hard to make you forget both the languages you speak!" he growled. The barkeeper gave him a stink eye, but he didn't care.

"He's the owner of a brothel. By the docks. But you shouldn't..."

Athos never knew the end of the sentence. In a second, he was already out of the pub: he seemed to have gained back control of his legs and for a couple of great minutes he hoped to be able to reach the docks, get his woman back and go home without even spending the night in London. But a sudden noise brought him back to reality: it was his body falling on the ground, heavy and powerless.

He slept there and he saw her only in his dreams.

* * *

Roman couldn't wait even for a few hours. He'd got some food, put it in a bag and rushed to that address, impatient.

Needles to say, he was disappointed when he saw that the building responding to that address had collapsed on itself and a few walls were still standing for miracle. But he didn't give up. In his stubbornness, he passed through the gate, being careful in not touching anything that could undermine the building's stability, looking for any clue. He noticed that the stairs for the upper levels had fallen, but the one going down in the basement was still standing there; actually, it seemed to have been cleaned up from the wreckage.

He went down silently, looking around worried about the creaking noises of the inclined beams and the crumbling ceilings falling on the ground. He couldn't see anything down there. He almost bumped into the basement door.

He slowly opened it and he realised right away that the place wasn't abandoned: a weak light was coming from the inside, along with the sound of an instrument, which sharply stopped. They must had heard him.

"I don't want to hurt you." he said, again. He was getting so used to say that sentence… He heard some noises from the inside, as someone was trying to hide in a rush, but he was quicker: when he entered the basement, he was able to see part of Vanessa's dress disappearing behind a big wardrobe. "It's me, Roman." he said, slowly getting closer to not scare her.

"I've brought you something to eat."

On the table, next to an old, wrecked sofa, along with an oil lamp, there was a violin. There was no one else there.

Roman let a smile slip on his lips: he knew she'd lied to him. And he also knew how to get her out of her hiding. "It's such a beautiful instrument..." he provoked her, pinching a string.

"Don't touch it!" she burst out, coming out to defend her violin, which she immediately went for. Roman smiled victorious and she stepped back, face red with anger and frustration. "How have you found me? Did you follow me?" she strutted, offended.

The soldier sat on the sofa and she zapped him with her eyes. He opened the bag he had and took out a loaf of bread, some cheese, a tin of beans and a bottle of water.

"I think you forgot something..." he said, theatrically, taking out of his pocket a document and then reading the name on it. "… Nico Weber. And I believe this is not even yours."

She snapped towards him and tried to snatch the document from him, but Roman was quicker again and managed to keep it. "I think you owe me an explanation. Or maybe you're busy… Do you have to take care of your sister?"

Vanessa was shaking with fear. She was staring at him, standing still. If she was a wild animal, she would have been growling right now, ready to attack. But she was just a girl, and her eyes were soon filled with sincere tears, running down her cheeks, revealing the true colour of her pale skin whilst cleaning the dirt on her face.

At the beginning, Roman felt guilty, but he kept taking out items from his bag. "Why don't you tell me who did you steal these documents from? And these clothes..." he took out a jacket, some trousers and a man's hat. "And this gun?" he asked in the end, holding the pistol steadily to prevent any hasty movement from her. He was tired of being bribed by women, in one single day he'd been threatened and mocked more than he'd been in his entire life.

Vanessa stood in silence.

"You hid everything in the wreckage of that house, when you realised you were trapped. Clever disguise, but now you have to tell me why on earth you shot me!" the seriousness with which Roman said those words went growing and resulted in resentment. After all, she could have killed him on the street.

Vanessa breathed rapidly, angrily, then she ran towards the door, her violin in her hand.

"Stop!" he shouted, running after her to. He blocked her right in front of the door, while she had already opened it. He hugged her from behind, immobilising her even if she kept kicking and squirming.

"Let me go, let me go, you pig!" she squeaked, trying to free herself.

"You don't know what you're talking about, if you go out there, you know what's going to happen! Stop it, I'm not going to hurt you. I was just provoking you." he confessed. And she gradually calmed down, eventually.

"Come. Tell me." Roman tried to be as kind as possible, walking her to the sofa, while she sighed in silence, defeated. "I swear I didn't want to hurt you." he added.

"A soldier's promise is worth nothing." she had said a similar thing that same afternoon.

"How many soldiers do you know?" he replied, still provocative and tired to hear that false statement: he'd always fulfilled his promises.

"One. My father: Nico Weber." she replied promptly. "He promised he'd came back. He stayed in Spain with that whore and left us here, to be slaughtered by other pigs like him."

That confession was so harsh and rough that Roman didn't know what to reply. He wanted to ask her so many questions, but nothing came out of his mouth. But she went on.

"Have you ever seen them? Have you ever seen them raping a nine year old girl? How can you ask me to trust you, after my mum and sister have died because of you?" her voice was strangely controlled, it trembled just a little on the words she wanted to enhance. Her body, though, was shaking like the strings of the violin she was holding at her chest like a shield.

Roman stared at her in silence and he couldn't help but thinking that even with her face shocked, this time for real, she was beautiful. He thought about the girl he'd saved a few days ago, paying with his blood his heroic act and he wanted to say that yes, he'd seen them, but he was trying to forget.

"Did you want to blame your father for my murder, or only to kill me?" he asked calmly.

"I realised you were the wrong target only when I saw you closer. One of the pigs that killed my family looks just like you, and..."

"So you just go around the city seeking revenge? You will get yourself killed." he mocked her, sceptical, without thinking that she actually managed to shot and fool him.

She seemed to be offended by that statement. "I've never asked for your advice! And for the record, I'm already half way, so maybe I'm not as stupid as you think I am!" she replied, outraged.

"I've never said you're stupid, just foolish. What do you mean by 'half way'"?" she didn't reply, and looked away, vague. "How many people have you killed?" Roman insisted. When he understood she didn't want to reply, he took her hand between his so quickly she didn't have time to draw it back. "You have to stop. You can't go around killing people and hoping to get away with this."

Vanessa withdraw her hand all of a sudden, as if his hands were boiling hot. "What do you care?"

"I'm worrying about you!" he burst, standing up.

"About me or about your mates?" she argued, standing up herself and staring at him for endless moments.

She was driving him crazy and he didn't even know why. She was just a stubborn girl, he could had shut her up at any time, but he couldn't find the right answers to her implications. Why he couldn't just let her go? Why did she look so sensual even though she was dirty, poor and she mistreated him all the time? How had he ended so close to her face?

In less time that Roman needed to think about what was he doing, he found himself kissing her with desire. He'd taken her face in his hands and he was tasting her mouth one movement at time. She was kissing him back, but remained still colder: in her right hand she was still holding her violin, whilst her left hand hanged along her hip. It was like if Vanessa had won again; she'd had what she wanted, and once again he'd been playing her game.

Stupid.


	4. Chapter 4

_Chapter 4_

"Play something for me." Roman said, caressing her naked back. She'd got up to sit on the bed, the sheet covered her body from the waist down, her long, dark hair down on her shoulders. He thought it was such a romantic and sensual scene that he almost forgot that a few minutes ago they were basically screaming at each other. He couldn't connect the poetry that had taken shape in the sheets to the overconfidence and coldness she was capable of.

Vanessa turned and gave him a saucy smile, victorious again.

"I only play for myself." she replied, glacial, changing her face and standing up to wear her dress that she'd left on the floor. And he'd believed he sweetened her during those two hours in bed. Instead, he found himself mentally exhausted, disappointed from her answer and from the fact that she was so proud she couldn't change a tiny bit her behaviour. After all that passion, that desire, born all at once, and all at once ended in an icy sigh that had pushed her back again… After all those words he'd wasted on her, still she dared to treat him as he was inferior.

Well, if she wanted war, she would have had war. He was a soldier and there was no chance that an impertinent girl could have won on him. If she wanted him to want her so badly, he would have made her desire him even more.

He got dressed quickly. Vanessa looked at him, surprised at first, as she hoped to be the one to dismiss him, but then she looked the other way and turned her back to him, while wearing her shoes.

Roman stood up, confident, and got his gun back; then he remained looking at her, waiting for a clue, a goodbye. Vanessa turned to him with a naive, indifferent face.

"Well?" she said, shaking her head.

He didn't say a word. He would have wanted to slap her until she would have begged to stop, but of course he didn't. He came to the point to wish she was a man, to confront him on equal terms; but she was a woman, instead, the bitchiest and prettiest woman he'd ever met, and she was melting his brain from the anger. He went away without saying a word, slamming the door.

* * *

"Why did you arrive so late?"

Milady looked at him reproving, frowning. Then her face sweetened.

"Not here..." she said, stretching her gloved hand towards his face. A strong forget-me-not smell reached his nose, so sweet it was almost nauseating, and as soon as she touched him, Athos came round.

He was still in the same spot as he was when he'd collapsed the night before, but the sun was pleasantly warming him up. After a few minutes of confusion, he suddenly remembered the whole conversation he had a few hours ago with the barkeeper and the two Frenchmen, and he jumped up, forgetting the numbness all of a sudden. She was still wearing that glove. She wanted to be found, she knew he was going to look for her, even after all those years.

He walked towards the dock, fast, even though the words she'd told him in his dream still echoed in his head.

He didn't take much precautions. He knew that once they'd found each other, nothing else would have mattered. Whoever that Mr. Matthew, or what's his name, was, he couldn't have done nothing with the two of them together, he would have defeated him in a blink of an eye to bring her back home.

The brothel was huge and showy, directly facing the dock. Every unpleasant smell coming from the river and the water's stagnation became nothing in front of that building, overwhelmed by exotic perfumes and mixed scents.

Out of the door, a violinist was playing a slow, melancholic melody and Athos found ironic the contrast between the song and that place. He didn't even realised that in the moment he went in, the musician completely changed the theme, and started playing the Foscarina of Marini.

A large-breasted woman stepped out in front of him, sensually.

"No weapons in here, pretty eyes." she said with a mischievous smile.

"Mr. Matthews." said Athos with his eyes red and a tired voice, looking around. But he could only see half naked girls walking around, some to serve the next customer, some to peek in his direction and make thinly-disguised compliments.

His interlocutor seemed to antagonize when she heard that name.

"You'd better go away, pretty eyes." she replied in an almost perfect French.

"No, you'd better answer to me! A woman..." he murmured panting and confused. "A woman with a glove like this..." and pulled out of his pocket half of the pair of gloves that Milady had left at the crossroads. The woman opened her eyes wide, but she didn't have time to reply. A series of squeals drew their attention; the other girls were wincing when a portly man walked through them with a heavy foot. He was walking towards Athos and his face advanced nothing good.

The woman disappeared in a flash and the Musketeer drew his hand on his sword's hilt. That man was enormous, bald and twice as big as him; plus, he didn't look inclined to talk. He came in front of him and without hesitation he kneed Athos in his stomach.

Athos fell on the floor, aching, coughing and trying to realise what had just happened, but he didn't have time to do it: he found himself on the street, probably with some broken rib, in pain and dust.

"A-Anne..." he sputtered, coughing and spitting dust, while the violinist kept playing the Foscarina. "Anne..." he stood on his trembling knees. "ANNE!" he shouted in an animal call that made even the violinist wince, making him missing a note.

"ANNE!" he continued, screaming towards the windows, filled with curious girls looking at him, whispering to each others, with their breasts in plain sight. "ANNE!" he wouldn't give up. He didn't fear that big guy, he didn't fear to be arrested or to end up dead in the river: he had to find her, and if she was there she would have let him know in some way.

He dashed on the closed door. "Open! Open, you bastard, coward, dog! Give her back to me, she's mine!" he raged with his fists against the strong wood, until he didn't feel any more pain in his hands, in his stomach, in his back: until even the Fornarina seemed to blur into nothingness, far away, and her voice would repeat "not here", making him more and more angry.

"WHERE, THEN?!" he shouted, striking one last kick at the door.

"You are late." a statement in a broken French made him turn around suddenly, furious. It was the violinist who had stopped playing for real and was staring at him, his face in gloom. Athos went on him, grabbed his collar and pushed him against the wall.

"What do you know? Tell me!" he growled, two centimetres from his face.

"I have to play, leave me! If I don't play, he suspects!" Athos caught breath, but in his eyes still sparkled a flicker of madness that could have killed the musician only looking at him.

"Play, then, but speak, for the love of God!" he let him go, irate and impatient.

The man went back playing the nostalgic melody, and after a few seconds he spoke.

"She was here until two weeks ago, then she disappears. They say he killed. They say she was spy. He hates her name. A girl asked questions, he beats the girl, he sends the girl away. No job, on street." the man explained, clearly shaken, keeping playing and keeping an eye on the brothel's door. "Go away now, he kills you!"

"Who's the girl?" asked Athos, standing there.

"Redhead Liz. Coventry street." he cut it short, urging him to go away with his look.

Athos hesitated a little more, then he gave a last glance to the palace, as he expected to see her face among the girls' at the windows, but nobody was watching out anymore.

* * *

"Vanessa. It's me, open the door."

Roman had been knocking at the basement's door for a few minutes, in vain. He could just walk in, but his prudery kept him from doing it without being sure that she actually was in there. He started to worry, the sun had set a couple of hours ago and if the girl wasn't in there, then she was going around alone. In the worst case scenario, she was in trouble.

In the end he couldn't stay without Vanessa for more than two days and he'd given up. He'd swallowed his pride and he'd come back to her, head down, determined to ignore her sharp, cold behaviour. After all, she'd been through a lot, he couldn't blame her if she still couldn't fully trust anyone.

As regards to him, instead, his feelings for her were pure and he would have even express them if she'd just stopped being a bitch for one second.

"Vanessa, I'm coming in." he announced, before opening the door slowly.

The place was desert. Only the abandoned violin on the sofa blessed him with the illusion that she'd come back. He moved a few steps inside, intrigued by some papers on the table. He didn't want to, he shouldn't, but he did it.

When he saw a train ticket in plain sight, he couldn't help but peeking. They were only three days away from the date on the ticket, and when Roman read the final destination on a safe-conduct nearby, he couldn't do anything but open his eyes wide.

He wasn't able to read what was written on the letter dense with words right below the train ticket, because a voice made him wince.

"What are you doing?!" Vanessa was standing in front of the door, looking at him serious. She reached the table, loping, picked up the papers greedily and put them into the drawer, then she went back glaring at him. "How dare you?" she was furious, and she was also dressed as a man, again. She still wore her father's coat, man's trousers and the hat. Roman noticed some blood's spot on the top part of the dress she was wearing underneath, but he had a thornier question to ask.

"You are leaving." he said, still shaken.

"That's no concern of yours." Vanessa cut it short.

"Why are you going to Spain? You know they have Franco there, right?" he scolded her in a voice he would often use with Ninochka, when she would do something wrong.

"Oh, I thought there were only rainbows and flowers in Spain." she mocked him, ironic. "Of course I know they have Franco there! And I also know that France wants to close its borders, so I'd better hurry."

He looked at her astonished, with no words, surrendered, powerless: once again, defeated.

"Don't do it." he begged, in a low, desperate voice.

She laughed; she didn't understand, she minimized the importance of what they had, of what they always had, from the first time they'd met.

"Let's see if I get it right: I should stay here, in this basement, instead of studying violin in the Conservatory, only because a pig Russian soldier tells me to do it?"

He winked, incredulous. He couldn't understand how she could be so insensitive and emotionally distant, even when he opened his heart to her.

"To go with a pig Austrian soldier who abandoned you?!" he replied, angrily. The question was still echoing in the basement's desolation, when a slap hit his cheek. He immediately realised the mistake: it was her father, after all, the only relative she'd left, and he was trying to make up to his daughter. Roman rubbed his aching face.

"Go away." she hissed.

"I love you." he whispered, and then he couldn't tell whether her astonished look was in reaction to his words or to the sound of the door opening again.


	5. Chapter 5

_Chapter 5_

Roman hadn't thought much to that crucifix buried at the bottom of his trousers pocket since when the old lady gave it to him, but for some absurd reason it came back to his mind in that very moment. When the four soldiers entered the basement, he felt his heart in his throat and instinctively thought of grabbing the jewel in his pocket, even if he didn't do it.

"Oh, look at the hero..." one of them provoked him, speaking Russian.

"Run." he whispered to Vanessa, without thinking that there was no way out but the door. She was terrified, her eyes wide open, breathing heavily. She moved slowly, as if she wanted to hide behind him, but she didn't miss the opportunity to mutter "You bastard..." shocked, and Roman noticed that she wasn't looking for protection, she was getting away from him.

He was astonished. She couldn't think that he brought them there.

"And so, you didn't want to share her with your friends?" another one teased him, with arrogance.

"Let's take her." said the third one, and the four were on them so quickly that Vanessa only had time to scream and Roman to try and reach for his gun, before they took it from him.

"NO!" he shouted at the top of his lungs. "No, let her go! Vanessa!" two of them were holding him by his arms, while the other two had taken her and had already taken off her coat. She was kicking and struggling, but she couldn't do anything against those two men.

"She's a sophisticated one..." one of the two mocked her, pointing to the violin on the sofa. "We can't fuck her on the floor." he brayed in loutish laugh.

Roman could barely hear what they were saying, deaf by his own shouting and his mates' laughters. He was insulting them, telling them to stop, to let her go, telling her that he didn't do that, that he loved her…

He saw them laying her on the table and taking her trousers off. They put a knife to her throat threatening to cut her skin open if she dared to fight back. She was speaking in German, things that not even Roman could understand because of her confused shouting and crying. She spat in the face of one of the two, who became furious and more violent.

"VANESSA!" he was screaming, trying to free himself from grasp. "VANESSA!" he kicked, tearing his shoulders, punching the air. "VANESS-" and then he fell on the floor in a heartbreaking rattle.

When his eyes went dead, the last thing he heard was the beginning of an out-of-tune melody from Vanessa's violin.

* * *

The first thing Athos thought when he saw redhead Liz was that if another woman Milady could trust existed, that was her. She resembled her so much in her attitude, that for a moment he wondered if in all those years she'd shaped her to be her deserving heiress. The way she said: "Redhead Liz? Depends on who's looking for her." gave him the creeps.

"I'm looking for Anne." the Musketeer went straight to the point, after he'd studied every escape route the girl could have taken. In fact, as soon as she heard that name, she turned the other way.

"I don't know who are you talking about." she lisped, trying to get away, but this time he had the reflex to block her arm.

"Please. I'm… her husband." he hesitated at first, pronouncing those words, but then he reassured her with a determined glance. She stared at him in the way Milady was used to do, and she seemed convinced of his intentions. She freed herself from the grasp, but stayed in front of him.

"She talked about you. Confidentially. No one else knew she was married." she sentenced, confident, as she wanted to show off her position in Milady's circle of friends. Which, actually, it was something to be proud of.

For how curious he was from the whole story, there was only one thing Athos wanted to know: "Where is she?"

"If I knew, I wouldn't be here. That woman is resourceful, but I fear it didn't end well." she said, disappointed, keeping looking at him. "Now I see what she saw in you." she deviated for a second, but Athos brought her back in the topic.

"What happened?" he insisted. Liz sighed, annoyed, reluctant to talk.

"If you knew her as I do, you'd know that she'd never wanted to become partner of a monster like Matthews." she explained, with that condescension that made him feel stupid, even if he hadn't thought that his wife had had interests in managing a brothel. "Don't ask me how, she didn't tell me neither, she'd managed to get in good with the King himself." an excited flicker in her voice betrayed her. In fact, it was pretty impressive, for someone who didn't know her as he did.

"I don't find it hard to believe." he commented. She pulled herself together.

"Her job was to find those pigs bishops who came at the brothel and report them." she confessed, carelessness. But seeing Athos' confused look, she went on. "In the last few years the archbishop Laud advised our King, and both of them want to keep the church's profile pure to the people's eyes… But not everyone likes the direction they are taking. Who's found in inappropriate situations for their standing, will be banished. Matthew's brothel is famous to care about the customer's privacy."

"And Anne had a perfect dual role. Of course..." everything was clearer now. He could clearly see her as the welcoming madame at the entrance, like the one who had received him when he'd gone in. It wasn't difficult to think she'd gained Mr. Matthews trust with some favours… And in the same time he could picture her overhearing conversations behind the doors and getting information from the girls. Everything made sense.

"But Matthews must have sensed something. And it could be all my fault." she confessed, unexpectedly. Athos looked at her puzzled, and she sighed. "I rushed her into report more than one of those pig priests in only few months. I couldn't stand them, they were mistreating us, and asking for discounts… Matthews must have sensed something seeing his customers decreasing like that..." for a second she looked forlorn, but then she went back staring at him in a challenging way.

"… so he got rid of her." he concluded, astonished.

Liz slowly nodded. "If she was still alive, she would have let me know."

So, it was it. He'd arrived too late.

He had to sit on the ground, his head in his hands, staring off. He couldn't believe he'd lost her for real, for a matter of days. He tried to remember what was he doing the previous week, or the week before, and tortured himself thinking that nothing was as important as getting her back from London, and that his procrastination had killed her.

"You know her better than me." Liz let her guard down, maybe she had pity of him and decided to leave him at least that victory. "She's never stopped wearing that glove." she added, and her voice trembled. "I keep hoping she's still alive somewhere, and that soon she'll come back to get me."

That sentence haunted him for the whole night and the following days. He could hear it in the sound of the ferry to Calais, in his horse's trotting, in Constance's worried voice, and in the silence of the nights in the Garrison.

She was waiting for him, and he'd abandoned her, alone, among whores and pigs. He didn't know where to go now, to look for her.

The only thing he'd left was a lonely glove.

* * *

When Roman opened his eyes, he thought he could still hear the screeching notes of the violin's strings, scrambled by inexpert hands.

Just for a second Vanessa's voice reminded him that what was most horrible it had happened right there, in front of him. He blinked a few times, trying to get back to reality, even if he wanted to stay in the oblivion.

He realised there was no violin there, he must have imagined it. There was nobody there.

"Vanessa…" he mumbled, but when he tried to stand up a searing pain stabbed the back of his head, where they'd hit him. "Vanessa..." he repeated, standing up on his feet even if his body was screaming him to not do it.

He staggered for a while, his sight blurred and he roamed around the basement like a lost soul. He looked around, more and more tormented. There was no sign of her. On the table, a blood stain reminded him of the atrocities they'd made on the body he'd loved with so much respect only a few days ago.

He remembered her hissing… "You bastard", she'd said. She'd thought he'd brought them there. He realised he hadn't let her know the best part of him, actually. He could have done better than that, he could have loved her tenderly, despite the slaps, the harsh words and her coldness.

He'd never felt so guilty before, and he cried, huddled in a corner. He regretted every word he'd said to her, except from the last two.

He had to protect her, but he'd tried to conquer her instead; it was the same perverse scheme that the Soviet Union's proud arrogance was doing with the unconscious, emotionally broken Austria.

He should have freed her from all the burdens she was carrying on her back, but he'd been too obsessed and impatient, and he'd lost her forever. He pulled out the crucifix from his pocket and squeezed it in his hands.

The painful cry turned into an angry shout. It hadn't been only his fault. He didn't rape her. It wasn't him who might have killed her. He didn't kill her mother and sister.

He squeezed that necklace so hard that the corners wounded his hand's palm. He didn't have any more tears, only hatred. He put back the crucifix in his pocket, picked his gun and went out.


	6. Chapter 6

_Chapter 6_

Vanessa didn't have any luggage, nor money, nor her violin, but she was carrying a heavy burden instead.

She was filthy, wounded, tired and emotionally wrecked. But she still had reason to live: her life was hanging to the strings of the instrument she loved so much. They'd brutally taken it from her.

She didn't care, she didn't care she'd been raped by four men; she didn't care she'd had to sleep in the streets for two nights, in terror, forced to rummage in the rubbish and to eat things that had made her feel worse than before. More important, she didn't care about that pig Russian soldier who'd betrayed her. She didn't want to see him anymore, even if he was haunting her dreams.

His last words… Nobody ever said I love you to her. For one crazy second she hoped Roman was fine, in spite of everything he'd done to her.

No.

The only thing she had to pray for was that all the tracks were still connected, that her father was waiting for her in Bern and that her train wouldn't be bombed, even if she knew it was unlikely that all these chances turned right for the best, and that probably it would have been a very long journey. But she was sure that the part of the journey she had to do by herself would have been relatively short. Once she'd met him, she could have felt safe again.

He'd promised her they would have been a family again.

However, a burden she wasn't surely carrying on her conscience was the life of those six bastards. Long time and big risks for her to kill them all without nobody suspecting of her. Her mother and sister were avenged.

There were still four of them out there, the four who'd taken advantage of her, the pig Russian's mates. By divine will, they'd left her bleeding and suffering on that table. They'd taken the violin from her, strumming it in a bad way, and she'd felt even more raped. But she had to go away from there, she didn't want to speak to him.

She would sleep on the street, rather than share her bed with a pig.

In the station she had to get through the Soviet's security, but she had so little with her that they were astonished to see her with a train ticket for such an attractive destination. They let her through without even touching her.

She found her train all ready, waiting for her, and for the first time in days, a satisfied smile appeared on her face spontaneously. She'd never been on a train before and even if the station was half destroyed, full of ripped wagons and holes in the ceiling, her train was there, majestic, steaming, beautiful.

She went closer like a child attracted by the cotton candy stall. She looked at it enchanted, full of wonder, and when she put a foot on the first step, for a moment she thought she was a child again; there was no war and her father would bring her sometimes to listen to the concerts in secret, outside of the theatre, and they would dance and laugh loudly, and if someone would catch them, they would run away… Then the Nazis had come. And the American had destroyed the Wiener Staatsoper. When she reminded it, her heart skipped a beat and in that second she seemed to hear a violin playing. She knew it was just a magic illusion of her memory, but she turned anyway.

She saw him walking towards her with the love in his eyes. Vanessa paled.

Roman stopped one meter away from her. He was dirty, even more than her, and Vanessa realised only getting closer that he was covered in blood from head to toe. He was holding her violin, stained with blood itself, but undamaged, and from the handle was hanging something she couldn't identify. But it wasn't the violin Vanessa was looking with apprehension to.

She ran towards him, worried, and started to caress his hair, his face, his neck, while her eyes searched for wounds on his body. He was impassive and stared at her severe, sorrowful, tired, amorous. When Vanessa realised that, she quickly stepped back.

She hadn't forgotten what she'd done to her. She took back her bow and her violin and inspected that strange jewel hanging from the handle.

He stretched his arm out, to handle her bag to her and she took it in mistrust. However, she opened it greedily and searched the content. There was her pistol, that the soldier had taken from her, some food, some money and four documents.

She rapidly looked at them, at the pictures on them, and suddenly she realised whose was the blood Roman was covered in. She winced, then she started breathing spasmodically, seeking air in that station that had suddenly become an oppressive cage. The so attractive train, a torture that would have kept them apart.

She threw herself in his arms, she kissed him, she cried, she laughed, she loved him and she said it to him.

"Write me." she said, she commanded. "To the Madrid's Conservatory."

He nodded, his eyes filled with tears. He watched her getting on the train, he remained looking at her behind the window, while she smiled with that mischievous, naive face. She put the violin under her chin and she started to play.

For him.

Roman didn't know, but that was the Foscarina of Marini, a sonata from the XVII century. He thought it was great, because it was all his.

And when the train left and the music faded in the distance along with Vanessa, suddenly the soldier remembered.

* * *

Days passed, then months, years. They would pass fast, inconsistent, useless. Athos couldn't get over it. He couldn't accept that she'd disappeared in that way, leaving behind nothing but a measly glove. He'd literally consumed that piece of cloth, trying to sense her scent, imperceptible by now. In the end he'd threw it in a corner of his office from where he would try to keep away from, even if from time to time it seemed like it was calling him, a constant reminder of the fact he'd failed.

Four years had passed, and Athos' hair had begun to show ashy stripes, blessing him with a new charm and greater wisdom. Despite he was looking at his life like a sequence of blurred pictures, a filter would automatically select the ones regarding her, and it would perfectly remind him her scent, her voice, her skin, Liz's words… Those words would never let him alone.

"I keep hoping she's still alive somewhere, and that soon she'll come back to get me..." maybe they were the same words that Milady herself had told her, talking about him. She'd been waiting for him for the whole time. He could see her naked hand twisting the gloved one in impatient gestures every time a customer would enter the brothel, and her eyes looking at the door, hopeful, deluded. In the same way he would give quick, cursory glances at every letter he would receive, hoping to read her name on it, or Liz's bringing him some news. But nothing.

Porthos interrupted his ordinary rehashing, entering the office with some papers in his hand. He had pity on his face.

"What?" Athos asked, getting up behind his desk.

"I'm sorry, I..." the Musketeer mumbled, still.

Athos stared at him, questioning. For As taller than the Captain as he was, in that moment he could have been compared to an ant, trying to shrink in his shoulders.

"What?" Athos insisted, of few words as always, slightly raising his tone.

Porthos handed him the letter, Athos took it and quickly read it; his face changed between the hand-written lines, in a precise, neat calligraphy.

"I thought she would have made you… I thought she didn't..." Porthos tried to justify, torn by guilt.

Athos looked at him, astonished, then he punched him in the face so hard that his friend staggered against the wall, without saying a word. He didn't have time, anyway: Athos had already ran out of the office.

She was alive. Milady was still alive.

He would have found the time to forgive Porthos, but he had to find her now: he saddled his horse and rode away so fast that when Porthos looked out the office's door, after hesitating for a few minutes, his friend had already disappeared in the streets of Paris.

He wouldn't rode so fast even if he had had armed men chasing him. He reached the village in less than an hour, dismantled and rushed to a pretty, white house's door.

"Anne!" he exclaimed, entering without even knocking.

At first he thought he was looking directly at an angel, a splendid hallucination created by his mind, but when her eyes ran to the threshold and stopped on him, he had confirmation that everything was real. Her face's reaction was simply human, so much that he thought he'd travelled back in time, to when they met for the first time.

She smiled, but her eyes were crying. He walked closer at a fast pace and took her in his arms, he kissed her for the longest minutes, not knowing how much time had passed. He didn't care, he would have died like that, he didn't care about anything but her.

"Anne..." he sighed, breathless, leaning his forehead against hers and holding her so tightly to hurt her. But she didn't say anything, she was just looking in his eyes, her face wet with tears.

They stayed like that for a long time, their foreheads touching; he was holding her wrist in the most passionate hug, she was holding to his shirt, scared that he could have ran away again.

"I thought I'd lost you forever." Athos confessed, snapping a couple of kisses on her full lips, incapable of resisting the contact.

"Ti ho cercato. Mi hanno detto che te n'eri andato." ricordò lei con dolore.

"I came looking for you. They told me you'd left." she remembered, painfully.

"I'd come looking for you. They told me you'd died." he replied, taking her hands, without taking his eyes off her, as if he feared that if he'd distracted for a second, she would have disappeared in a puff of smoke.

"They told me you'd forgotten me." she looked at him inquisitive, to study his reaction.

"Never." he firmly replied. He pulled out of his pocket the glove, once white, now worn and dirty, and he showed it to her like a trophy. Milady smiled and kissed him again, wrapping her fingers around the glove and finally getting it back after all that time.

"You scared me to death. I thought you were ill for real." that's what the letter said, but he should have suspected it was just one of her tricks. She'd never stopped being Milady.

"I knew the letter could have ended in someone else's hands. I had more chances to get to you, in this way." she explained, as she was talking about everyday business. "I'm sorry." she added, under the Captain's shocked look. Noticing it, she showed him her most dismissive gaze, whilst keep smiling, as she wanted to show him she hadn't changed in all that time.

Athos closed his eyes and swung with her like a boy in his first crush, intoxicated by her scent, stunned by the perfection of the moment.

"I love you, Anne." it just came out of his lips. She didn't reply, exactly as he expected. "I've never stopped loving you." he struggled to recognize himself. All his pride had been erased by one single look of that woman, the only woman.

"You have to go now." she murmured, cold and still overwhelmed by the passion. He opened his eyes and looked back at her, confused.

"I still have to fix a couple of things. You can't stay here. I'll come looking for you soon." she seemed to be sincere, saying those words and looking in his eyes.

"Whatever it is, I can hel-" he censored himself, zapped by her half-ironic, half-bossy glance.

"I'll come looking for you. I promise." she repeated, giving him back his hands and putting them on his heart. "Don't stop loving me." she added, giving him a last smile.

If Athos still had doubts about the truth of her statements, after that sentence he'd fully convinced himself.

He returned the smile, kissed her hands that he was still holding on his heart, and left the little white house.


	7. Chapter 7

_Chapter 7_

Raquel used to rub the back of her hand when she was nervous, and in that moment she was very nervous. She was sitting on that anonymous seat, in that anonymous aisle, in that anonymous building and stared in the distance; her big eyes wide open, her copper-blonde hair in a mess because of the uncomfortable journey on that low-cost flight, which had brought her to Vienna only a few hours ago. That intense smell of disinfectant didn't surely help her overcoming her fears.

Even after all those years, after she'd been through a lot in her life, from her marriage to have given birth to her two splendid daughters, still the memory of that woman filled her with terror and respect at the same time.

Still, she knew well that she must be different now from how she recalled her, beautiful and fierce, proud, harsh, arrogant, strict. But still, the thought of meeting her again shook her bones and shrank her stomach.

"Miss Rivera?" a young woman had appeared on the door next to her, whom jumped on the seat. "Miss Weber is ready to receive you." the girl announced smiling, in a sweet voice.

"Y-Yes, just a moment." she babbled, in a broken German, mostly gesturing.

She wasn't ready. She wasn't absolutely ready. She also thought to go back home, but she couldn't do it, not now that she knew she was there.

She sighed deeply. She thought about all the things she wanted to tell her, after twenty years they hadn't seen each other, but she also thought about all the things she couldn't tell her.

She stood up, determined: she had to do it now, or she wouldn't never been able to do it. She nervously smiled to the nurse and entered the hospice room.

Everything was white in there and she thought that was a colour she wouldn't have never associated to her. Then she saw her and she couldn't recognise her. She was really small in that big bed, white itself, like her robe and her hair. Maybe she was feeling already in heaven in that way, or maybe she didn't even believed in heaven.

The first feeling she had to cope with was commotion. And she smiled even if her eyes were burning, maybe because of the sunlight reflecting on the white – too much white – or maybe because of fear, even if that woman communicated everything but fear.

"Miss Weber. Raquel is here, do you remember her?" the blonde nurse gently spoke to her, walking towards her bed. The old lady smiled, slightly shaking the ventilator's tube under her nose.

Raquel instinctively right her back, as if she feared to be scolded, and slowly walked towards the bed.

"Do you see her?" the nurse pointed at the woman that now was approaching her bed. The old lady looked at Raquel coming closer and smiled toothless; they weren't sure she was understanding. "It's your student, remember? The one from Madrid, the one you always talked about..." the nurse went on. "We wrote her a letter last month, remember?" she kept encouraging her to remember, until the lady nodded. The nurse spoke to Raquel, then. "I leave you two alone." she smiled with a casual glance, and left the room.

Raquel hesitated for long time on where to stand. She seemed to fear to be wrong, but in the end she went for dragging a chair next to the bed and sit there, ensuring to adjust her skirt properly.

"Raquel..." the woman gasped, stretching out a hand and surprising her, as always. More than ninety years and she kept surprising her.

"Miss Weber." Raquel smiled, sitting up straight, taking the wrinkled hand, reassuring. "It's so nice to see you." she lied. She hadn't understood yet whether she'd done it for duty or affection. "I haven't got any flower, I'm sorry. My flight..." she tried to justify herself. Actually, it was only an excuse to pull back her hands: she felt uncomfortable touching her. And she also felt the need of rubbing the back of her hand again.

The woman laughed and the laughter became a coughing fit, which she managed to calm down, though. "Do you still remember, don't you?" she made fun of her, pointing to her hands. Raquel immediately separated them, growing uncomfortable. "All the times I hit you with the bow… It worked in the end." she sentenced with trembling voice. Raquel blushed in shame.

"I remember, Miss Weber." she admitted, wishing to sink through the floor.

"Vanessa." she said. "I'm Vanessa, now. I'm not your teacher anymore." and she coughed again.

Raquel looked at her astonished. As long as she could remember, she'd never known her name.

"Are you married, Raquel?" she asked out of the blue, making her blush again.

She nodded in silence.

"And do you have any children?"

"Two."

She invited her to get closer.

"Come here, show me." she urged, interested. "What are their names?"

Raquel relaxed a little. She smiled and pulled out her phone from her bag; she started sliding a series of pictures in front of Vanessa's eyes, explaining: "My husband Victor. This is my daughter Celia, the eldest. She's already seventeen. And this… Is Iris, this year she will turn fifteen."

Vanessa's look became serious, then she smiled again in that way that Raquel well recalled, as if she was always a step ahead than anyone else, and she had to show it off.

"Iris..." she repeated, thoughtful, as she had big plans in mind for her daughter. She almost expected that she told her to bring her there immediately, to teach her to play something.

"Do you know why I wrote to you, Raquel?" she asked, unexpectedly.

The woman shook her head. She'd imagined she wanted to say goodbye to someone; in the letter she got from the nurse, the young woman had added a few words herself, explaining the situation. She probably wouldn't have seen next winter.

"Do you know why I was so harsh with you, at the Conservatory?"

Raquel shook her head. So, she knew she was particularly strict to her. In another time she would have jumped up yelling "So you admit it…!", but that wasn't the moment, at all.

"I was unhappy, Raquel. And I still am." she said, with tear-filled eyes. "When I was in my early twenties, I met a man. A soldier." Raquel pricked her ears. Was she really opening her heart to her in that way? To her, that was little more than a stranger? "Roman..." she said in a whisper.

"Was he a German?" Raquel asked naively.

"No. He was a Russian. I left him in Vienna in 1945 to go studying in Madrid. He promised me he would have written to me, but he never did." she confessed, her eyes staring in the nothingness. "The only address he had to contact me was the Conservatory's. That's why I stayed there, all those years… Waiting for a letter..." she added, laconic.

Raquel was moved again by pity, and in the following silence, she took back her hand. She couldn't see anymore her strict violin teacher, but only a woman that, after sixty-five years, still regretted her lost love.

"I could have looked for him. I could have informed myself. But I never did it." she struggled to swallow. "I was too proud and too scared. I've lived my whole life remembering another one, the one..." and she dropped the sentence.

"How long were you together?" Raquel dared to ask, curious and intrigued by that story, that she would have never imagined. She knew that Vanessa never married and many times with her classmates she'd joked about it behind her back, calling her an "old frigid" or "frustrated", and now all those insults were flaying painful strokes of the bow on her conscience.

"A life and a few days." Vanessa replied, smiling. Raquel thought it was an insane answer, but she justified it thinking that at her age she was lucky she could hold such a challenging conversation without confusing dates and names. She smiled back.

"I'm sure you'll meet him again." Raquel said confidently; she firmly believed in life after death. Vanessa smiled melancholic.

"Me too." she whispered, then her face changed. "Listen to me now. Open that drawer." she said then, pointing to the bedside table. Raquel obeyed with no complaint: she was familiar with that tone that didn't admit objections. "Take that necklace." and Raquel took off a long, silvered chain, from which a flashy, ancient crucifix was hanging. "Give it to your youngest daughter, Iris. It belongs to her."

Raquel knew that any complaint would have been muffled, but there were way too many questions she wanted to ask. She was talking nonsense. Even if she didn't have anybody to bequeath those jewel to, why Iris? She hadn't even never met her. But when she opened her mouth, she was ready with a more interesting topic, that distracted her right away.

"You were the best of the course, Raquel. And also the only one who would have flown from Madrid to her at my request." Raquel blushed and burst with pride. Twenty years for a compliment, but it was the best she'd ever taken, and from the most competent person she knew.

"If I was severe with you, it was only because I wanted to hear the Foscarina one last time, when my time would have come." she confessed, moved. "And you're the only one who can play it perfectly."

Raquel was overwhelmed by self-satisfaction, but she hesitated once more. "I haven't played the violin since..."

"It doesn't matter. You remember it." Vanessa cut it short. "Under my bed..." and Raquel saw Vanessa's violin's handle coming out. It was always the same. She remembered it very well, it was scratched and worn out and she'd always envied it, compared with her brand new one, because it had a story to tell.

She put it on her shoulder in a familiar move. She took a few seconds to find the right pose, then she started playing, and Vanessa lost herself in the notes.

She closed her eyes and went back to her life and a half with him. Roman. Athos. And then even further, to when they were only two souls loving each other, hating each other, splitting, getting back together, separating, running after each other. And then she smiled, thinking about the future, about how many lives they had to live, how many chances to meet again, to love each other again.

She put a hand on Raquel's knee, ecstatic by the precision with which the notes were dancing on the violin's strings, and on her heart's.

* * *

"Milady!" Liz exclaimed, running to her.

She would have keeled over like an empty sack as soon as Athos had closed the door, if the young girl didn't catch her promptly.

She tried to keep her on her feet, but her weight forced her to kneel on the floor to go with her in the fall, leaning Milady's back on the ground and holding her head with her arm. "I told you you couldn't make it..."

Milady weakly smiled, trying to keep her eyes open. The sweat drops falling from her forehead were revealing a heavy but realistic make up, intended to mask her pale face. Liz caressed her cheek tenderly, looking at her with concern. "Why didn't you tell him?" she asked in a low voice, holding back the tears.

Milady feebly raised her hand and caressed her back, smiling in the way that only she could do: in that way that made feel the redhead naive and always one step behind her mentor.

"I hope you'll fall in love, one day." she said in a raspy voice. She put a hand on her wrist and made a grimace full of pain, twitching. She coughed. Liz shook her long, red hair: on her face there was not even the ghost of the girl that Athos had met in London. She just looked like a scared little girl.

"He would have stayed by your side." she insisted, impossible for her to accept such a thing.

"He would have suffered much more than this." Milady cut it short, tired, trying to stand up with the girl's help. She pressed a hand on her wrist, squeezing her eyes and hissing, then she took Liz's hand and pitifully looked at her. Always a step ahead.

"Let's do it now." she said, nodding.

The girl shook her head, upset. "N-no… I can't, it's too… Too soon..." she babbled, not able to contain her tears. She started crying. Milady stroked again her cheek, cradling her.

"You promised you wouldn't cry for me." she reminded her, sweet but severe. "Behave like a true woman. Do it for me." she swallowed and smiled feebly, then she took a step back.

Through her tears and sobs, Liz went into the adjacent room. She came back holding a gun. With a foggy sight and her nose dripping, she loaded it. "Milady..." she squeaked from time to time, with no response.

She was there, in the middle of the room, still and beautiful, with a firm power and her eyes closed. Only when Liz raised her shaking arm, her breath went shorter, but she opened her eyes and faced the death.

"Tell him I will go look for him." she said, raising her voice to talk over the girl's spasmodic sobbing. "Tell him… I will love him forever." she waited a few seconds more, then she nodded.

A shot echoed in the little white house, followed by a frustrated scream.

Milady's hand was laying open on the floor, revealing the glove she had been holding to until the last moment. Liz ran on her corpse; her clothes soaked with blood, becoming the same colour as her hair.

In Milady's wide-open eyes she could read an ironic will to live that seemed to make fun of her, in a last joke, proving once again to be always a step ahead of the world.

* * *

This is the way it ends! I know you're going to hate me forever BUT! BUT! Fear not. I've just started a new chapter! I know, I thought this one was the last one but I suddenly had an idea, and I absolutely had to write it. It will be about Porthos, but it will connect all the pieces together!

I promise you'll find out how Iris and Manuel found Tommy and Beatrice, and many other things, including what happened to Milady and Athos' souls!

It's not complete yet, so I will need some time... But it's thanks to you that I found again the will to write, so thank you a milion times for your reviews and comments, I love you all and I hope you'll keep following me!

XXX

Anya


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